


Our Time Has Passed

by WebWeaver



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Dutch Being Dutch, Gen, Red Dead Redemption 2 Spoilers, Red Dead Redemption Spoilers, Sad, Young Dutch van der Linde
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-24 16:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19727614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WebWeaver/pseuds/WebWeaver
Summary: Dutch recalls his life during a moment of ultimate reflection.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains spoilers for Red Dead Redemption, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Please proceed with caution! This is also my interpretation of his life, and is not intended to be considered canon.   
> Also, I am still working out details of this, and this is the first thing I've written in a VERY long time. Please be kind!

My body ached as I climbed the ladder, but I ignored it as I forced my mind to flee. I could hear John Marston behind me, hastily catching up. I had not explored this deeply into the mining tunnels, and could not be sure of an exit. An exit is what I needed, as shots from our guns echoed through the tunnels. Running, that is all I seemed to do was run. Yet age was beginning to catch up to me, and I could not run like I was once able. My feet skidded to a stop high atop the cliff, snow falling over the edge to the sharp rocks below. My ragged breath formed clouds before my face, obscuring my vision for a moment with their density. The metal of the gun burned my hand from the cold hitting it, and my skin burned as the ice cold wind seemed to cut into me like knives. I heard him approach behind me, and turned to face the man I had once considered a son. He held the gun strong and steady, his own breath escaping in a small cloud.

  
“Hello again, John.”

  
“Hello, Dutch.”

  
His voice had always been unique, and for a moment I was lost in a memory of when he'd been a boy about to be hanged on the gallows. “We gotta stop meeting like this.” I turned to look down the cliff to the rocks below, then turned my attention back to him. “I've got a plan, John.”

  
“You always got a plan, Dutch.” He responded, his gun not wavering. Would he take the shot? What feels like a lifetime in the past, I would have said no, but after all I'd done to him, I could no longer be sure.

  
“This is a good one.” I threw my gun down, a hand still at my side covering the wound.

  
“I don't doubt it.” John responds, the sound of his gun sliding back into its holster echoed in the mouth of the cave he stood in. He was listening. Once more, I had his attention, his eyes on me. Just as it once was.

I took a deep breath and chose the next words wisely, as I knew they would be my last. “We can't always fight nature, John. We can't fight change. We can't fight gravity. We can't fight nothing. My whole life, all I ever did was fight.”

  
“Then give up, Dutch.” He said, his voice strong as he commanded me to surrender.

  
I continued. “But I can't give up, neither. I can't fight my own nature. That's the paradox, John. You see?”

  
“Then I have to shoot you.” There was an almost imperceptible change to his stance, but I knew it. He was preparing for a fight. I nearly smiled with pride.

  
“When I'm gone, they'll just find another monster. They have to, because they have to justify their wages.”

  
“That's their business.” I shuffled my feet closer to the edge of the cliff. He was calculating every step I made, waiting for me to attack him.  
“Our time has passed, John.” My mind was made up. There was only one way this was going to end, only one way it could. Only one way that was deserved.  
But as I stared at the man I once called my son, time seemed to stop. The howling of the wind was silenced, the pounding in my chest stopped. I couldn't feel myself breathing. Suddenly I was overcome with echoes of voices from my past, voices I thought I'd long forgotten. Voices I missed terribly that ripped my heart to shreds, and voices I'd come to despise through time. Voices I'd fought the hardest to forget.

  
I'd once heard it told that your life flashes before your eyes when you are about to die. Perhaps I had considered myself invincible until that moment, as I'd never put much thought into it. I was surprised to find it was true, which forced me to admit two very important details to myself. The most important was I was about to die. Some part of me knew it, but the rest had assumed I would be able to survive this. I'd survived everything else, perhaps this would be no different. The second important detail I was faced with was the sudden clarity; a clarity I had long given up hope of seeing again. The fog was lifted from my mind, and I could see it all.  
And as I stood atop the cliff, staring John in the eyes, I was suddenly dragged back into the first memories I ever tried to suppress. My childhood.


	2. Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Dutch reflects on his life, he recalls his early childhood and details the loss of his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the kudos and positive feedback! It was brought to my attention there was a formatting error with the last chapter. I hope to remedy it this time! Please bear with me, however. It has been a long time since I've written anything, and I'm still trying to find that "inner voice".

The story of my birth differs depending on whom is asked. My father, a Dutch immigrant, believed the day of my birth was a blessing, while my mother, an English immigrant, believed my existence a curse. We were not poor, but we were far from the luxurious life my mother felt we deserved. She had grown up in high society, surrounded by riches and servants before coming to America, running from a world she considered oppressive. It was clear she had not escaped quickly enough, for her mind was still poisoned with the ideals of civilization. My father, on the other hand, was a simple man. He was a teacher, and craved knowledge of the world far beyond his own backyard. It was he who taught me of the world, he who taught me how to read, he who taught me to think. The greatest lesson of all was taught to me by that man: The smartest man always wins.

No matter the situation, no matter the way the chess pieces fell, a smart man can work his way out of anything. From a young age, I craved the knowledge he carried with him, the wisdom he shared. I did not take a single word for granted, clinging to his lessons like a life line. Knowledge was power, that was how the smartest man gained, and maintained, his power. I read book after book, and when I was not satisfied with the books he brought me, I would slip into his study to peruse his personal library. When this no longer satisfied my lust, I began stealing the books from bookstores in town. Each time I was caught, my father would whip me for stealing. Yet with every whipping, there was an understanding in his eyes, and soon after a book would mysteriously appear on my bed the following evening.

My father also loved music. At first, I hated the music he would play, but soon I began to fall in love with it as well. It touched my soul, and filled me with a deep emotion I could not explain. I would sometimes become so lost in the music, becoming aware only when I felt the warmth of tears falling down my cheeks.

I was six years old when the war began. I didn't quite understand it, and my parents were careful to hide the details from me. It was unusual to be denied such information, so I secretly read about it in newspapers. The war was violent, gruesome, with brothers fighting brothers. Homesteads burned, families slaughtered, and each day we lived in fear that one day the battles would come too close and my father would be dragged away. As the battles drew closer to our home, the worst fears were confirmed as my father was called away to fight. He was a proud man, picking up his weapons and heading out into the war. “We fight for America, son. This is the land of opportunity, the land of new beginnings. This is what it means to be an American.”

Night after night, my mother and I would wait at the window for any sign of my father's return. As the nights stretched on with no word, we became sick with worry. For the first time in my life, my mother held me close, and I allowed it. We did not always get along, my mother and I, but where my father was concerned we were in agreement. I was eight years old when an officer knocked on our door, the sound of my mother wailing told me my father had been killed. My world shattered as the officer returned some of my father's things, including a photograph of us covered in his blood.

There would be no more books.

There would be no more words of wisdom.

There would be no more twinkle in his eye as he told me stories.

There would be no more music.

My father was gone.

My mother was, perhaps, more destroyed than I thought capable, and fell heavily into the drink. Entire days would stretch by with none of us speaking a word, only silence filled our home. The war continued to rage on, and part of me never lost hope that perhaps, one day, my father might return home.

He never did.

We won the war, but the victory did nothing for the wound on our hearts. What was a victory when we lost the only thing that truly mattered, the one person who seemed to breathe life into our lives? In his honor, and to honor the victory for America, I decided to play some of my father's music. My mother was roused from her trance for only a moment, then beat me for touching my father's things. Those things died alongside him, it would seem. She threw out his music, his books, and returned to her drink.

Yet I still craved that knowledge, and refused to allow her to take that from me. Waiting until she had fallen asleep, I would sneak out of the house and ride into town, stealing as many books as I could carry and hiding in the woods to read them by lantern light. I would pause sometimes and listen when I could overhear music playing from someone's home. Each note captivated me, drawing tears from my eyes once more. This was freedom, I realized. The ability to go where I chose, consume knowledge as I pleased, hear music as I desired. This was America. When dawn would break, I would slip back into our home and my mother never knew I had left; or if she did, she never said a word to me about my nightly journeys.

Hiding in the woods through the night aroused a new desire in me, the knowledge for total freedom. Yet the world frightened me. It was one thing to read about it in a book, or a newspaper, it was another thing entirely to live in it while so young. As the years slipped by, my nightly journeys turned into weekly journeys, and my return home was far from welcomed. Part of me grew to despise my mother, though part of me loved her all the same. She was in pain, her heart more broken than mine, and she had no way to cope. I could not begrudge her that, for I was also in pain from the loss. Still, despite the pain, I knew there was more to the world than the small area I'd taken to exploring. The world was mine. At fifteen, I left home leaving behind a note on the table explaining my decision to leave. I have no idea if she read it, or her reaction to my departure, but I did what I needed to do. I was a free man.


End file.
